At NO Hornets Dec 5th, 8:00 PM

Last year this was a loss. No doubt. Maxiel and Hayes start us going. The starters re-group and just plain outclass that bunch. (By the way, I wanted us to spend the money and get Chandler when we lost Ben).

The Maxiel effect is what I call these last few games. His play makes it so much easier for the starters. This is a very good trend...

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Once Hot Rod gets into the flow of things if he can play as good as we expect him to then our first three off the bench should be pretty darn good.

"If the starters get down, the bench is coming in there to pick us up and close that gap, or if we're up, they're coming in to sustain the lead," Wallace said. "That's what's making it look easy for us, though it's really not."

On a side note, nothing against BW, but you gotta admit that the Bulls quit on Chandler 1 year too early. He's a productive mofo.

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I am sure that Paxton and Skiles kick themselves everytime they compare Ty Chandlers stats to Ben's. Some chemistry problems at the United Center or where-ever they play at these days.

Only wish we could done a sign and trade with the Bulls to get Chandler before he was shipped off to Nawlings......with the numbers he put up last year, that was definitely a title that Pistons missed out on...

They turned to defense, started grinding and led from halftime on in a 91-76 win -- their fifth straight.

"Their best offense is their transition, and I thought we started the game shooting quick shots and missing," said point guard Chauncey Billups, who struggled at times but finished with 18 points and six assists. "When you do that, you're off to the races. ... You can't beat them like that."

Starting in the second quarter, the Pistons slowed the game to their pace. As the Pistons pestered Chris Paul with traps, the Hornets' offense tanked. They finished with 34.7% shooting and 13 turnovers, and didn't score more than 18 in any of the final three quarters.

"We shrunk the floor," coach Flip Saunders said. "We tried to pin him on the sides. ... You're not going to stop him with one guy. You need a team effort, and that's what we had."

Now that was impressive. And the sort of game these guys have just given up on in the past. You got to love Hayes - just comes in and shoots the ball when the starters begin to look shell-shocked, when no one else seems to want a shot. The whole game turned when he hit a couple of jumpers.

Not sure if this is right or not...

Ben was a rebounding machine. And too many times the other Pistons sat back and got out of his way, maybe because they thought they were supposed to, who knows. Without Ben the rest of the team is finally coming around and starting to rebound as a unit. Seems like the same thing is happening in NO with Chandler. Everyone is getting out of the way and letting him go for all the boards, and when he's out, or when he gets blocked out, it all goes pear shaped. One big guy doing all the dirty work can get you a long ways, even to a championship, but I really like it when rebounding is the responsibility of the whole team.

Delfino-
In 510 minutes, he is 36-85 from inside the arc and 36-82 from 3pt land.
That is and eFG of .539 and 13FGA/40 min.

Hayes-
In 344 minutes, he is 46-89 from inside the arc and 17-39 on threes.
That is an eFG of .550 and 15FGA/40 min.

The only difference that I can see in their offensive production is that Hayes shoots a much higher % from close range (51% vs. 42%). That is likely due to all the post success he is having.

Delfino is kicking butt and so is Hayes. I think we would have been OK going either direction on this. However, Delfino probably needed a change and more minutes. The minor benefit to us is that Joe maintained a little bit of good will by not letting an unhappy situation fester.

Uuuggh OK lets be totally objective.
Carlos Delfino was/is a good basketball player. The things that Carlos Delfino does well he was not able to do them here. Toronto is a better situation for Delfino to excel in. It would have made no sense whatsoever for this team to change it's structure for the sake of Carlos Delfino. Case in point some of us have had jobs where our best skills were never used, for a variety of reasons, the culture of the company, the ideal position was already being filled by a very competent person etc. etc. The same can be said for Delfino. Los needs mins and touches, he's not instant offense, he likes to play himself into a game and allow the game to come to him. There is nothing wrong with any of that, all of those are good qualities. In Detroit he did not have the luxury of playing that way, in Toronto he does, case closed. Delfino was never going to work here unless we dumped Rip or Tayshaun.

This would be the difference between the "Detroit" Delfino and the "Toronto" Delfino. He is a part of the offense in Toronto and even though not a "major" part; he plays enough minutes over there to get up some shots without forcing them.

This stat really does show how big a ball hog Murray is. Delfino is playing a ton of minutes in Toronto and Murray is getting only garbage time minutes and is still close to Fino's shot attempts per game.